Aceh Reconstruction Comes to a Near Halt

Indonesia's post-tsunami recovery is at a near standstill and millions of people will be relying on aid from non-governmental organisations and international agencies for months, the head of the country's reconstruction body said yesterday.

Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, appointed last week to run the rehabilitation and reconstruction agency for Aceh and Nias, said there was "no sense of [government] urgency" in Aceh and that "close to zero" of promised government funds had been disbursed.

"It's shocking. Very limited things have been done for the poor people," Mr Kuntoro, a former energy minister, said. "There are no roads being built, there are no bridges being built, there are no harbours being built. When it comes to reconstruction, zero."

Reports of aid arriving late, or not at all, have become common in Aceh, the province in northern Sumatra worst hit by the Boxing Day tsunami.

Mr Kuntoro blamed a lack of coordination between government ministries and parliament for the failure to release any of the £325m earmarked for this year.

About 168,000 people died or are missing and thousands of coastal communities were devastated in Aceh on Boxing Day and on Nias island following another major earthquake on March 28.

Mr Kuntoro said he expected the delays to last until September and in the meantime was relying on the £1.05bn being disbursed by NGOs.

Francisco Roque, Oxfam's programme manager in Aceh, said the local government had been initially effective in clearing corpses and debris but there had been "little progress" in the last month.

But he was impressed with Mr Kuntoro's first week. "He's working on practical issues, to solve bottlenecks," Mr Roque said. "In the second half of 2005 I expect to see real progress."

Mr Kuntoro said yesterday he had signed a £325m memorandum of understanding with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent to start rebuilding Meulaboh harbour on the west coast and a £130m deal with the US to rebuild the 155-mile road along the west coast, and approved a £16m project from Intel Corp to lay fibre optic cables throughout the province.